Folks, SRK is the biggest star of the country. That’s arguable here especially on MS. I am objective. SRK is a sincere person to his profession and does good mostly. But I agree with a lot of MS members that he is overly hyped and doesn’t deserve all that much attention. With movies like MAIN HOON NA, he verifies my belief that his expertise is limited. While movies like Swades and Paheli, in which he begged to differ from his chocolate boy image, have failed to take him click with his detractors, the guy also seems to slow up gradually on his typical genre, especially in home productions. Playing a comic patriot in Phir Bhi Dil Hai Hindustani must’ve been a big regret for him. Chalte Chalte was a lucky runaway success, and Main Hoon Na too falls in the same category. Mr. Chocolaty does prove his star power at the BO, but besides that he fails to deliver something that would make him popular with those who’ve always doubted that he has anything besides that starpower. Gone are the times where he pleased one and all with great performances like DDLJ and Darr. Now he’s merely a cry baby trying to gain the audience’s sympathy. More on that later.
Main Hoon Na promised to provide entertainment along with a message of peace and harmony in Indo-Pak relationships. Frankly, just as a movie buff rather than a resident of one of these countries, I noticed there was nothing substantial to promote peace. SRK danced and romanced a school teacher (Sushmita) throughout the movies. Zayed Khan tried to look good with those disgusting long streaks of his. Amrita Rao tried to infuse life in a character that hardly suited her personality, and Boman Irani and Satish Shah were busy in cracking pathetic and disgusting jokes that refused to make any sense. Now how in the world would peace be promoted when only the last few reels are devoted to give the message in a highly casual way. Okay, the movie is commercial and everything needs to be entertaining, but then why the guarantee to be a movie that will pacify the relationship between the neighbors. To me, even the old-fashioned and boring so called ’’Classic’’ Veer-Zaara succeeded in delivering the message better. At least the characters and their respective nationalities got a scope in VZ. Main Hoon Na is totally different in that the nationality takes the back seat and the buffoon inside the person jumps out to simply force the audiences to be disgusted.
But there is always a flip side. Must say Main Hoon Na has a pretty flip side. Let’s see. Wow. Sushmita Sen rocks. The actress is absolutely gorgeous. The song ’’Tumhe Jo Maine’’ is all about her beauty and thanks to her natural beauty the song gets an all new fresh feel to it. Even otherwise the songs are the saving grace. The title song, Tumse Milke Dilka, and Chalein Jaise Hawaein are convincing in their own respect. Farah Khan fails as a director but at least manages to handle the choreography part of all these Anu Malik tunes well. Cinematography is cool, laced with great action thanks to the never-disappointing Alan Amin. Editing hams. The approx. 3 hour length, full of childish stunts, could’ve been chopped down to 2.
Main Hoon Na is an SRK movie all the way. It is a typical SRK-hamming performance all the way, and fortunately or unfortunately, the movie became an acclaimless hit thanks to the fact that it belonged to SRK. I don’t know if my diction is comprehensive, but let me put this in simple words. SRK does take the lead role, but he disappoints big time with his poor, reflexless performance. His starpower did give the movie financial success, but his performance never let it be a superior product.
Zayed Khan is even worse. He is intolerable with his rough-boy image in the first half. With a hair cut he looks much better in the second half and convinces with some decent sequences. Overall, nothing to look forward to. Amrita Rao is wasted in a role that doesn’t suit her at all. The lesser said about Satish and Boman, the better. Naseeruddin Shah is wasted too. Sushmita Sen, to re-iterate, steals the show with her beauty. She is a gorgeous actress with unlimited charisma and substance. Hats off to her striking presence in the movie. One can go to the theatres to catch the movie more than once for the sake of Sushmita and only Sushmita.
Overall, a disappointing fare which forces me to conclude that Farah should quit direction and return to choreography. Good to do some good business, but it’s highly doubted that she will repeat the same financial success as a director.
To sum up, this deserves to be in my list of films that didn’t deserve to be hits. MHN is in that list and that list is highly recommended too. Unfortunately, this movie is not.